"There's no evidence of intent, deliberation. He (Wade) didn't go there with intent to murder. ... He thought there was going to be peace made,'' the attorney said.

Wade is facing seven felony counts, including one of first-degree murder, for the April 13, 2011, shooting in front of a Dowagiac residence at 210 Grant Boulevard where Wade, Nickens and several other men regularly gathered. Johnson told the jury he intends to show Wade acted in self defense.

"If there was a reasonable belief he (Wade) was about to be ... killed, he's not guilty of homicide,'' he said.

Johnson and county Prosecutor Victor Fitz presented different pictures of Wade on the opening day of a trial that's expected to continue into next week. In his opening statement, Fitz portrayed him as a gun-toting, bad-tempered 19-year-old who was looking for revenge for Nickens' rubbing his face into a carpet during a dice-game scuffle at the Grant Boulevard residence the night before.

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According to Fitz, the two had never gotten along largely because Nickens resented the way Wade treated Nickens' niece, who Wade was dating. Johnson agreed there was bad blood."Nickens didn't appreciate Wade. He thought he was soft, that he was a punk and abused his niece,'' he said. "Because of this, at every opportunity he (Nickens) called him out.''

The situation became so intense that Wade and his girlfriend moved to Arkansas "to get away from it,'' Johnson said. But they eventually moved back, ultimately resulting in the confrontation at the house occupied by a friend, Andre Murff.

Fitz told the jury Wade had the handgun in his pocket when the fight broke out but it wasn't until the next day he worked up the courage to use it. But, Johnson argued, Wade had carried the gun for a year, mostly to look "cool.''

"It's a tragedy he hit him,'' he said of the three shots fired into Nickens' back. "He had never fired the gun before.''

Fitz said Nickens had pulled into the driveway of the residence where he'd fought with Wade and, when he noticed Wade was there, shouted for Murff to walk over because he didn't want to confront Wade. But, the prosecutor added, Wade was waiting for Nickens and when he saw him pull up, he walked over and, after a brief exchange of words, fired at Nickens as Nickens tried to exit the vehicle.

But Johnson's version of the shooting sharply contrasted with the one offered by Fitz. According to it, Wade had been told by Murff on the telephone that Nickens had told Murff he was sorry for hurting Wade, leading Wade to believe he was meeting Nickens that day so the two could make peace.

That scenario quickly blew up, Johnson said, when Wade walked up to the van and observed Nickens lacing up his shoes. Nickens told Wade, the attorney argued, that when he was finished with his shoes he intended to finish what he had started the night before.

"Out of fear, and with a sense of self preservation, he (Wade) pulls a weapon and shoots,'' Johnson said.

Nickens either died at the scene or shortly afterward at Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital. Among the first witnesses called by Fitz was Nickens' mother, Shirley Nickens, who said her son, a father of three, was so weak when she ran up to him at the shooting scene he could only turn his head to look at her.